Frankfort-based Joanna Hay of Joanna Hay Productions Inc. is the recipient of an award presented by the national Oral History Association. The 2013 OHA Award was presented to the independent producer for her Frankfort Public Art Tour project, sponsored in part by the Kentucky Historical Society. The project was conceived and overseen by Hay and her associate, Judy Sizemore. It documents a representative sampling of public art treasures – including oral histories – found throughout Frankfort. The tour can be accessed online or from a smartphone here, where viewers will find a map showing the location of each item on the tour plus additional images, audio and other information. For full story click here.
Editor's note – this story may provide inspiration to our own communities and historical societies.
Tag: oral history
Defending oral history
Kaitlin Fontana reflects on the death of Studs Terkel and the place of oral history today:
Five years ago, literary icon Louis “Studs” Terkel died in his native, beloved, Chicago. He was 96, four years short of a milestone befitting the expansiveness with which he’d embraced the seldom-heard voices of his country — that is the working, the poor, the normal (in particular, that odd normalcy that is the American Midwest). For Studs Terkel not to make it to 100 seemed cruel, because his voice seems as old as America itself.
Read her full article here.
Gay Life Stories Oral History Project – Australia
An oral history project will document the life stories of gay and lesbian Australians in a first comprehensive record of the changing attitudes to homosexuality. The joint three-year project by Macquarie University and the National Library of Australia will use historians from the University of Queensland and the University of Melbourne to record the life stories of 60 gay and lesbian people across Australia. For full story click here.
Kamilaroi oral histories launched
NAIDOC Week was commemorated in Narrabri on Tuesday with an Indigenous cultural celebration at the Narrabri Kids Education Centre.The children embraced the special cultural experience with great enthusiasm, and were captivated as four dancers in full costume made an entrance.
People dropping in to the Narrabri Visitor Information Centre are taking the opportunity to learn more of the local Kamilaroi people’s cultural heritage, thanks to an innovative touch screen at the centre.
The touch screen presentation of Kamilaroi oral histories was launched. For full story click here.
Oral History Audio Books – Broome
Audio books are one of the best remedies for boredom on long Kimberley car trips. They're a way to engage the mind without getting distracted from the road, a way to imaginatively travel around the state, the country and the world from your own car. But for people who prefer to be fully present in the landscape that they're living in, or travelling through, sometimes audio books from faraway places aren't ideal. Broome Public Library has been gathering and recording oral histories from Broome and the Peninsula, eleven of which are currently available as audio books. Oral historian Elaine Rabbitt says all the stories are gripping, but what's even more impressive, is the willingness of local people to share them. For full story including a radio interview with Elaine, click here.
Australian Gay & Lesbian Life Stories
A group of researchers from around Australia have come together for the first time to deliver an oral history of LGBTI Australia. The group, in conjunction with the National Library of Australia is seeking to collect and record the experiences of different generations of the Australian LGBTI community. The project is a first of its kind and the researchers hope to reveal the changing social attitudes to LGBTI Australians and document our history and achievements. For full story click here.
Students in Brisbane learn from Holocaust Exhibition
Brisbane Catholic Education has facilitated the staging of an exhibition on the Holocaust to help school students realise the importance of good people standing up in the face of bad situations. "Courage to Care", an initiative of the not-for-profit Jewish community organisation B'nai B'rith aims to educate visitors to understand the role of bullies, bystanders and victims using stories of the Holocaust. For full story click here.
Boeing Wichita Oral History Project
The “Boeing Wichita Oral History Project” features hours of videotape from 21 people ranging from politicians, Boeing employees and others in the community affected by the plant’s closure in a city that has long defined itself the Air Capital of the World. Friday night’s presentation will be a discussion of how the project came about and what was learned in the process. For full story including video overview click here.
Wisconsin veterans remember
Adam Holton's memories of Iraq are still fresh, even though it's been nine years since he served as commander of a Marine Reserves company. He vividly remembers the days during Golf Company's 2004-'05 Iraq deployment when five of his Marines were mortally wounded, and he recalls the tedium and excitement of living in a war zone. Holton wanted his memories, and those of his men, preserved for posterity. Because as long as he remembers his five fallen comrades, others will, too. "Keeping their memories alive is really important to us," Holton said. That's why Holton participated in the Wisconsin Veterans Museum's oral history project. More than 1,800 oral histories of Wisconsin veterans, dating back to the program's start in 1994, are on cassette tapes, CDs and now digital recordings. For full story click here.
Hurricane Katrina Oral History Project
Ian Breckenridge-Jackson, a Ph.D. student in sociology at the University of California, Riverside, witnessed the devastation as a volunteer gutting flood-damaged homes in 2006. The experience altered the course of his life and led in 2011 to his co-founding the Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum with another volunteer, Caroline Heldman, now chair of the Department of Politics at Occidental College in Los Angeles. The two serve as co-executive directors of the museum. “The Lower Ninth Ward was and is a unique community,” Breckenridge-Jackson explained. “Prior to Hurricane Katrina it had one of the highest rates of home ownership by African-Americans in the country, and many of those homes went back generations. This was a very family-oriented place where multiple generations lived near each other.” For full story click here.